Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 584: Learning to Set It Down (2)
"I am officially tired of walking," Erich announced.
"You weren’t official before?" Lyan asked.
"I was in denial before," Erich said. "Now it’s policy."
Lyan snorted.
He leaned forward, dipped his hands into the basin.
The water was as cold as before, a clean slap against his palms. It tasted of stone and sky and something he couldn’t name but trusted anyway.
He drank.
The knot of watchfulness in his mind eased a little.
(Not watchless,) Eira said.
(Just... less tight.)
"Fine," Lyan muttered.
Erich watched the water for a moment like it might bite him.
He remembered the way it had woken the word in him last time.
Weak.
He remembered how his throat had tried to close around it.
The Saintess’s voice echoed in his head instead.
Say: I failed once because I pushed past my limits.
He rolled his shoulders back.
"I’m not letting a puddle bully me," he said.
He cupped his hands and scooped up water.
It trembled a little between his fingers.
He lifted it to his mouth.
The cold hit his tongue, slid down his throat.
Weak.
The word came.
But this time, it sounded... far.
Like someone saying it in another room, behind a closed door.
Under it—quiet but present—another thought followed, the way the Saintess had pressed it into him.
I failed once because I pushed past my limits.
I am not a number in a tavern song.
He actually let out a small noise that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob.
It came out like a weak huff of air.
He set his hands on the stone edge of the basin.
"Well?" Lyan asked. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞
Erich stared at his dripping fingers.
"It still talks," he said. "The word. But it’s... smaller. Like someone shrank it and put it in a box."
"That’s good," Lyan said. "Small things are easier to step on."
"Do not encourage me to step on my own trauma," Erich said.
"Why not?" Lyan asked. "It keeps trying to step on you."
Cynthia’s warmth brushed his mind.
(You are kinder than you pretend.)
"Do not encourage me either," he thought back.
They sat a little longer, letting their breathing slow, letting muscles stop screaming quite so loudly.
No one spoke about feelings.
They just shared the bench.
Sometimes that was enough.
The rest of the descent was still work.
The path twisted through scrub and stone, widened, narrowed, widened again. Birds returned to the edges of their hearing. The smell of damp earth grew stronger.
By the time the first trees of the lower forest started to appear, Erich’s legs felt like they were filled with wet sand.
"I’m going to pass a law," he said. "All holy places must install stairs. Evenly spaced. With handrails."
"Write it down," Lyan said. "I’ll tell the gods."
"You’re assuming they’d listen to you," Erich said.
"They’ve listened before," Lyan said.
Not always kindly. Not always in time. But they had.
The words of the stone marker at the base of the trail met them when they finally reached the bottom.
Those who climb in truth,
Descend lighter.
Lyan brushed moss off the letters with the back of his glove.
"Feel lighter?" he asked.
Erich rolled his head slowly on his neck.
"My legs feel like they belong to another man," he said. "Does that count?"
"Partly," Lyan said.
They stepped off the mountain path onto the packed earth road leading back to the village.
The air here felt thicker again, but not as heavy as when they’d first arrived.
Same prayer flags, faded and flapping.
Same shrines at corners, bowls with coins and wilted flowers.
Same low wooden houses, smoke curling from chimneys.
Nothing had changed.
They had.
The innkeeper’s daughter spotted them first.
She was carrying a tray of empty cups back inside when her gaze slid over the road and caught on their shapes.
Her eyebrows climbed.
"You came back in one piece," she called.
"Mostly," Erich said.
They stepped into the warm, steamy air of the inn.
Conversations paused for half a heartbeat, just long enough for people to look up, check if the new arrivals were anyone they knew, and then slide back into the low hum of speech.
The woman who had served them before came over, wiping her hands on her apron.
Her eyes went straight to Erich’s face.
"Well?" she asked. "Mountain said ’yes’ or ’no’?"
Erich opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Old habit wanted him to say something clever.
He took a small breath instead.
"It said, ’work harder and stop lying to yourself,’" he said.
Her mouth curled.
"That’s as close to ’yes’ as most people get," she said.
"Then I’ll take it," he said.
She nodded once.
"Stew?" she asked. "Bread? Tea?"
"Please," Lyan said.
"Something that pretends to be meat," Erich added.
She snorted.
"We’ve got a goat that made poor life choices near a cliff," she said. "We’re making good use of his mistakes."
"Perfect," Erich said. "I’ll eat his consequences."
They took the same table near the wall.
Lyan deliberately sat with his back to the room at first, then made himself switch to face the door.
Old habits didn’t vanish with one holy spring.
The stew, when it came, was thick and full of things that actually had shape—beans, root vegetables, shreds of meat.
Erich took one spoonful and sagged.
"I could propose marriage to this bowl," he said.
"Don’t," Lyan said. "Your political advisors will have a fit."
Erich chewed, swallowing too fast and then coughing once.
"Do you think she has a separate line," he said after a moment, "for idiots who climbed for pride?"
"If she did," Lyan said, "it would wrap around the mountain twice."
A couple of nearby pilgrims snorted into their cups.
Erich glanced at them and flushed faintly.
"At least I’m in good company," he muttered.
(He assumes all of them climbed for that reason,) Eira said.
(He is wrong.)
Cynthia’s answer was gentle.
(But he is also not alone. Many climb to fix the story they tell about themselves.)
They ate in a slow, steady rhythm.
Lyan let his gaze drift around the room.
A man with healed but crooked fingers, turning a cup around and around. A woman resting her head on her partner’s shoulder, eyes less haunted than before. A boy making a little boat out of bread crust and floating it on the surface of his stew.
No miracles shouted.
Just small corrections.
The old shrine keeper in grey robes came in as they were finishing.
She moved like someone whose joints had opinions but who refused to listen too much. Her hair was braided down her back, white against the dull cloth.
She stopped at their table.
"Well?" she asked.
Her eyes were on Erich.
"Was it worth the climb?"
Erich wiped his spoon once more, more to buy himself a breath than because it needed cleaning.
"Yes," he said. "It hurt. And yes."
The old woman’s mouth twitched.
"Good," she said. "Now don’t make the mountain repeat itself too often. It has better things to do than teach the same lesson to the same man."
"I’ll do my best," Erich said.
She patted the table once and moved on.
Later, when they went to check on the horses at the paddock behind the inn, the air was cooler.
The boy from yesterday stood by the fence, tossing a bit of hay toward one of the horses. The animal ignored him with the dignity of something that knew hay would arrive without tricks.
"You didn’t drink from the High Spring, right?" Erich asked the horse.
It snorted.
"I’ll take that as ’no,’" he said.
The boy looked at them with a mix of curiosity and boredom.
"You came back," he said. "Old Joren said you would. He said you walk like men who hate wasting trips."
"He’s not wrong," Lyan said.
As they checked bridles and saddles, a small thing happened.
Over near the inn’s side door, a woman poured tea from a big kettle into a bucket.
"Not too strong," someone called from inside. "My husband says the last batch nearly grew legs and walked away."
"I’m making it weak this time," she answered.
The word floated on the cool air.
Weak.
Erich’s spine tightened.
For half a heartbeat, his body did what it had been trained to do these past months.
Stomach clench.
Breath hitch.
The echo of laughter, a room full of witnesses that didn’t exist anymore.
He could feel it rising.
He caught it.
He thought, sharply,
I failed once because I pushed past my limits.
I am not a number in a tavern song.
The panic bumped into the new words and slowed.
His jaw unclenched.
He let the rest of his breath out.
Lyan, tightening a strap, watched that tiny storm pass over the prince’s face.
Saw the flinch.
Saw the recovery.
He said nothing.
When they stepped away from the horses, Erich fell into step beside him.
"It still stings," he said quietly. "When I hear it."
"I saw," Lyan said.
"But I don’t..." Erich searched for a word. "I don’t break. Not like before. I can work with that."
"That’s all any healer can give you," Lyan said. "A chance to work with yourself. The rest is yours."
Erich nodded, lips pressed thin.
"I’ll take it," he said.
Trouble came down the road in the shape of a rider with dust on his cloak.
They saw him as they were coming back around to the front of the inn.
He was not a pilgrim. Wrong posture. Wrong tension.
He sat his horse like someone used to messengers’ miles, not mountain paths. His clothes were travel-worn, but the cut of them was too well-made for a simple trader.
He reined in at the well, scanning faces.
His gaze slid over Lyan and Erich once, passed, then snapped back.
"Sir?" he said cautiously. "Are either of you... Milo Thatch?"
Erich almost choked on air.
Lyan closed his eyes for the length of one slow blink.
"Congratulations," he said under his breath. "Your bad alias has a reputation now."
Erich straightened.
"In a way," he said. "Why?"
The rider dismounted stiffly.
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small tube, sealed with wax.
A simple, nondescript seal.
To anyone else.
To Lyan, it looked like a headache.
To Erich, it looked like the discreet mark of the royal cipher office back in the capital.
The rider held it out with both hands.
"This was left at a safe house in the lower quarter with instructions for a man answering to that name," he said. "It was suggested I look near the mountain road if I wanted to find him."
